The present invention relates to athletic shoes as are used for running, court sports, or the like. Particularly, the present invention relates to an upper construction for athletic shoes of the type which is provided with reinforcements for providing foot control.
It is known that each time that the foot of a runner contacts the ground, there is a force equal to about half the runner's body weight which makes the foot slip forward. While the friction between the outsole and the ground is high, such that the platform of the shoe stays fixed, the foot, if the upper does not provide adequate support, will move forward. This can result in damage to the toes and toenails, as well as irritation, of the top part of the foot. Additionally, it is known that lateral and medial motion of the foot can cause problems such as injury and fatigue, during running.
Accordingly, to restrict movement of the foot, various lacing arrangements and stabilizing members, such as reinforcing strips, have been devised. For example, early Dassler Brothers shoes (see page 34 of my book entitled THE RUNNING SHOE BOOK, Anderson World, Inc., 1980) and U.S. Pat. No. 3,138,880 show athletic shoes wherein each eyelet ring used for lacing is connected to the end of a narrow reinforcing strip which extends down the side of the shoe to the margin of the upper. These strips run approximately parallel to one another on each side of the upper and are stitched to the upper along their length. While such arrangements improve lateral stability of the athletic shoes to which they are applied, they do have several disadvantages. Firstly, since these reinforcing strips are relatively long (extending from the upper margin--or featherline--to narrowly set eyelet positions), they are subject to stretch, and only limited tension can be applied via lacing to these strips. Still further, since athletic shoes conventionally have from 4 to 7 pairs of lacing eyes, strips are provided over a major portion of the shoe between the toe and heel regions. This large number of strips over such a large area has several disadvantages, not the least of which is that they detract from the appearance (and thus the salability) of the shoe. They also interfere with comfortable fitting of the shoe and significantly increase the cost of its manufacture.
In a departure from the foregoing technique, U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,876 discloses an athletic shoe which seeks to restrict forward and lateral movement of the rear part of the foot through the use of a limited number of reinforcing strips that are not directly associated with each of the lacing eyes. In accordance with the construction of this patent, a reinforcing member surrounds a tongue opening of the upper in a zig-zag fashion with lacing holes being formed therein in a like fashion, so that alternating pairs of wide-set and narrow-set lacing holes are disposed along the length of the tongue opening. Additionally, on the medial side of the upper, extending from the lace hole reinforcing member to the featherline or margin of the upper, a reinforcing strip is placed at each of positions forwardly of and adjacent to the first metatarsophalangeal joint, and forwardly of and adjacent to the first metatarsal head or the ball of the foot. On the lateral side of the upper, a third strip similarly extends from the featherline to the lace hole reinforcing member at a position forwardly of and adjacent to the fifth metatarsophalangeal joint so as to urge the ball of the foot into the pocket or region located between the two strips that are located on the medial side of the shoe, for purposes of enhancing stability of the foot rearwardly of the toes, and preventing forward movement of the rear portion of the foot.
While the shoe construction of U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,876 may have beneficial characteristics, it does have certain disadvantages. Since the reinforcing strips are not directly connected with lacing eyes or holes, but rather are stitched to a separate lacing hole reinforcing member, stretching can occur and the amount of tension which can be applied by the laces to the foot via the reinforcing side strips is limited. The use of four separate reinforcing members increases the cost of manufacture, and as noted in greater detail below, the absence of any reinforcement on the lateral side of the upper rearward of the fifth metatarsophalangeal joint significantly is disadvantageous due to its affect of mid-foot stability.
More particularly, it has relatively recently been determined that, due to the physiological construction of the leg and foot, during running the foot of the runner does not strike the ground at the rear of the heel of the foot (as occurs during walking), but rather occurs along the lateral outer side of the foot. As a result, without proper or adequate foot control, the possibility exists that a runner's foot could literally fall off the edge of the shoe. The same holds true for runners who run on the inside edge of their shoe. Similarly, medially and laterally supporting mid-foot control is also important to athletes participating in court and other sports involving frequent lateral movements.